Practicable Empathy in Acting: Empathic Projection in Sophoclesâ Ajax

Christopher J. Staley

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Chapter 9 Practicable Empathy in Acting: Empathic Projection in Sophoclesâ Ajax

In: Empathy: Emotional, Ethical and Epistemological Narratives

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Christopher J. Staley

Christopher J. Staley
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Type:: Chapter

Pages:: 106â124

DOI:: https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004398122_010

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Abstract

A holistic understanding of theatrical empathy must comprise at minimum a three-pronged account of simulative enactment between multiple perspectives and situational selves. These three phases of emergent empathy include: from actor to character; from actor/character to audience; and then from the audience to themselves and each other. This activation may result in an infra-collective potentiation for emotional experience in audience members which often metatheatrically foregrounds audience membership itself. Put in simpler terms, dramas are designed to provoke affective group responses in audiences based on the conventional and collective witnessing of actors performing dramatic actions in front of audiences. Individual audience members can easily become aware of their place in a collective experience through affective entrainment with real agents ostensibly blending themselves into and out of fictional characters and circumstances. This paper explores said three-part process, demonstrating the ways in which Sophoclesâ Ajax can be understood as a platform not only for thematic empathy within the plot, but also structural metatheatrical empathy within its dramatic technics. Such thematic and metatheatrical phenomena may be more keenly engendered through the actorâs technical performance of dramatic action. Throughout, I mean to highlight the utility and efficacy of acting as a skillset and practice uniquely suited to enhancing the capacity for empathy in artists and audiences alike. Thus this paper will parse the three steps of theatrical empathy â as interactive and practicable exercises which might facilitate the emergence of empathy â by analyzing the ways in which actors and audiences jointly conceive empathic projection, per George Lakoff and Mark Turnerâs terminology. I argue that aside from the playâs thematic relevance as an example par excellence of theatre of war, Sophoclesâ Ajax is innately suited for therapeutic and remedial functionalization due to its humbling frames of multiple âselvesâ for the characters, actors, and audiences.

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Empathy: Emotional, Ethical and Epistemological Narratives

Series:Â At the Interface / Probing the Boundaries, Volume: 123

E-Book ISBN:: 9789004398122

Publisher:: Brill

Print Publication Date:: 24 May 2019

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Chapter 9 Practicable Empathy in Acting: Empathic Projection in Sophoclesâ Ajax

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Empathy: Emotional, Ethical and Epistemological Narratives

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Chapter 9 Practicable Empathy in Acting: Empathic Projection in Sophoclesâ Ajax